1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally directed to the field of vending machines and in particular to vending machines utilizing standardized control systems into which a bill acceptor-dispenser is incorporated to allow the vending machine to provide currency or coins as change.
2. General Background and State of the Art
Vending machines are in widespread use for the convenient dispensing of small, low cost items like drinks, candy, snacks and tobacco products. Originally, vending machines were coin only machines having the ability to accept and validate coins and a limited ability to make change. The development of bill validating devices allowed the incorporation of such devices into coin operated vending machines, allowing a vending machine to accept selected denominations of paper currency and credit the face value of the currency for allowing purchase of an item. Once an item for purchase is selected, any remaining credit would be dispensed as change in coins. To allow the incorporation of bill acceptors into vending machines, a standardized data protocol has been developed and adopted by The National Automatic Merchandising Association, NAMA®, in cooperation with the European Vending Association. A “Multi-Drop Bus/Interface Communication Protocol (MDB/ICP) Standard, Version 3.0 was adopted by NAMA® (in March 2003. This standard allows a bill validator to communicate with the vending machine controller (“VMC”), generally a microprocessor, and the VMC to communicate with the coin accepting device or changer.
However, the incorporation of bill acceptors in vending machines created a situation where users would more commonly use bills as opposed to coins to make purchases, resulting in bills being accepted and coins being dispensed without the coin collection tubes being replenished by coins input by the customers. This may result in an increase in the number of service calls required to replenish the coins in the coin changer while bills are removed from the bill acceptor. The depletion of even one specific coin denomination could result in the need for a service call or the inability to vend certain items as correct change could not be provided.
Thus, a need arose to try and manage the selection of coin denominations to be dispensed as change to attempt to minimize service calls. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,045,443 issued to Weston et al. discloses a method and apparatus for controlling the dispensing of coins as change from a vending machine. The method determines a combination of coins to be dispensed as change by determining a plurality of different possible combinations and selecting the most favorable one to conserve the remaining coins. The most favorable combination is the one determined to leave the greatest number of coins available for change according to a predetermined criterion that takes into account the number of currently available coins. This solution may forestall, but not eliminate, the problems associated with rapid depletion of the coins available to provide change in a vending machine which includes a bill acceptor.
The development of bill accepting machines which would also allow the dispensing of bills as change, a bill acceptor-dispenser, allowed systems to be developed that would take in either currency or coins, the selection of a purchase item, and the dispensing of change in the form of currency and/or coins. Sophisticated systems have been developed to control such integrated systems, as discussed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 4,499,982 issued to Sugimoto et al., which discloses a vend judgment device for an integrated vending machine assembly. The vend judgment device keeps track of the number of each denomination of coin and bill accepted by the machine, and each are stored in respective storage boxes within the machine. When a deposit is made, the vend judgment device counts up the number of deposited coins and bills in their respective denominations and counts down the number of paid out coins and bills in their respective denominations when change is made. The vend judgment device determines whether an item may be dispensed from the vending machine by calculating whether proper change may be dispensed from the vending machine. However, separately storing each denomination of bill in the vending machine makes this system both space intensive and substantially increases the number of components to transport the bills to their respective stacker, which compounds the potential note jam points which may require servicing. The space intensive requirement of this type of system is particularly problematic as the vending machine operator prefers a machine which maximizes the space available to store the products to be sold, not empty space required to hold potential currencies which may or may not be received.
The development of convenience devices which accept higher denominations of currency to allow the purchase of more expensive items, for example gasoline for an automobile, while still allowing the dispensing of currency and/or coins as change was inevitable. U.S. Pat. No. 6,055,521 issued to Ramsey et al. discloses an integrated cash station and change dispensing system to be used at a gas station to accept and dispense currency, or coins, or a combination of both. The '521 patent teaches a cash console that instructs a currency and change dispensing means to dispense an appropriate amount of change to a purchaser upon completion of a transaction. In this regard, the cash console instructs the coin dispenser to dispense appropriate coins to the change drawer and instructs a currency dispenser to dispense an appropriate number of bills to the change drawer. The system according to the Ramsey '521 patent is not concerned with maximizing the space in a vending machine dedicated to holding product as it is primarily a cash receipt system with an electronic control signal output to a separate dispensing device, a gas pump.
The foregoing described devices of the Sugimoto and Ramsey patents are not suitably designed to be incorporated into vending machines, particularly those utilizing the established vending machine communication protocols. Accordingly, a need arises for a system which will allow a bill acceptor and dispenser to be incorporated into a vending machine operating on a standardized vending machine protocol to allow the vending machine to dispense change in the form of coins and/or currency according to the amount of change to be dispensed and the availability of specific denominations of coins and currency.